It’s hard to trust every promise you hear these days. Most of us have had the experience of someone breaking a promise they made to us.
I remember a time early in our marriage when Whitney was away at a women’s Bible study one night, and a man selling vacuum cleaners came to our house. I told him right away at the door that I’m not interested. He said, “Oh, I’m not really needing to sell you anything. All I have to do is get enough demonstrations done, and then I get paid for that.”
“Really?” I said. “You mean you get paid just for coming into my house, vacuuming my carpet, and then leaving without me spending a dime?” “That’s right,” he said. So, I reluctantly agreed, but I made him promise that he wouldn’t try to sell me anything.
As it turns out, his demonstration included telling me about every part of the vacuum cleaner. I listened respectfully as he explained the marvels of every brush, wand, and hose. He finally got to the point where he demonstrated the vacuum cleaner’s power, but not before dumping some dirt on our carpet. No, he didn’t ask first. Just dumped some dirt and said, “Watch this.” Apparently, he only planned to clean up the mess he himself was going to make.
After about 15 minutes into this demonstration, he said, “You know, you seem like a nice guy. I want to tell you about an exclusive sale we’re only allowed to give to a few.” Oh boy, here it comes.
No, I didn’t buy the vacuum cleaner. And no, I wasn’t impressed with the fact that he broke his promise and tried to sell me something.
We all know what it’s like when someone breaks his or her promise. It’s irritating in cases like my encounter with the vacuum salesman, but in other cases, it can be devastating. We hear politicians make promises they can’t keep. We hear bosses make promises and then forget to keep them. Husbands and wives make vows and then break them. And so, because there’s a sour taste in our mouth from all the broken promises, sometimes it’s hard for us to believe God when He gives us a promise.
But not all promises are meant to be broken. Some are so unbreakable that they are rooted in eternity. God is a good Father, and a good Father never wants His children to doubt His love for them. He wants them to know they are His–not just for today, but forever.
Something every Christian wants is assurance of eternal life, but we will never have it until we learn to look away from ourselves to Jesus Christ as the Author of our salvation from beginning to end.
The Apostle Paul delivered this promise in Romans 8:
“For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” (Romans 8:29-30, ESV)
The phrase “those whom” occurs four times in these verses. The reason for that is to emphasize he is describing the same group throughout this whole section. Also, note that God is the main Actor here. God is the One who works all things together for good (v. 28). God foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies, and glorifies.
Those Whom He Predestined, Called, Justified, and Glorified
Predestination means “determine before” or “mark out for a destination.” In other words, God marked out this group ahead of time. Calling means God supernaturally called you to Himself through the preaching of the gospel. Third, justification means God declares you to be right with Him. That happens at faith (Romans 5:1). The moment we trust in Jesus as our Savior, God wipes out our record of sin. Essentially, God takes your record of sin and puts it through a cosmic paper shredder. And then He burns that. There is no longer any legal record of your sin debt in God’s courtroom. But on top of that, God credits us with the perfect life of Christ. That’s what it means to be justified. To be glorified means to be made glorious, brought into the glorious presence of God. It is to be brought home to glory in Heaven to be with your Creator for all eternity.
It’s essential to understand that God can legally and righteously do all this because of the cross. It’s like this. We were on death row, ready to face execution as a penalty for our sins. We broke God’s Law, and we offended His holiness. But then—glorious good news!—Jesus came and took our place on death row and endured the penalty for our sins. He stepped in and the hammer of judgment fell on Him, not us. So when we put our faith in Christ’s sacrifice, God can legally declare us just, holy, and righteous, because Jesus willingly exchanged our record for His. He got our sin; we get His righteousness.
Please notice from all this that our legal status as being right with God had nothing to do with how good we were. We all like to say to ourselves, “You know, I’m not perfect, but at least I’m doing better than that guy.” We love to compare ourselves to others.
Surveys show that nearly every American thinks that he or she is morally better than average. But, if you do the math, you can’t have 98% of people doing better than average. It just doesn’t work.
My Only Boast: The Cross
The more you understand the gospel, the more you see that our confidence before God can’t come from looking at ourselves. Our confidence has everything to do with the fact that our sins could only be paid for one way. There was only one way we could escape judgment—not by works, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Only Jesus could expunge our record of sins. Only Jesus could rescue us. Our confidence is in Him.
Paul said, “The only thing I have to boast about is the Cross. That’s it! Otherwise, I’ve got nothing!”
So often Christians struggle with assurance, because they look first at their own life. They think, I haven’t lived the life God wants me to. I haven’t lived up to all the things that the Bible calls me to be. My life doesn’t always perfectly show the fruit of the Spirit. So am I really saved?
There is a place for considering your own life. The Bible does say to examine your life and consider whether you are loving Jesus and seeking to honor Him as Lord of your life (2 Cor. 13:5). Because if you have no signs of repentance, that’s a serious concern. James says, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).
But the problem is that your works were never meant to be the basis of your assurance. If they were, you would never be confident of salvation. You would always see there was work to be done and changes that needed to happen. Because we aren’t perfect. No, the ground of assurance is not in looking to yourself but looking outside yourself to Christ on the cross and then the empty tomb and then seeing Him right now at the right hand of the Father interceding for you. It’s about letting the truth of the gospel wash over you again and again.
Those with true, saving faith don’t become bored with the gospel. If you’re bored with the gospel, then the fullness of the gospel hasn’t sunk in. Because the glory of God’s grace, the beauty of Christ’s personal love for you, and the joy of forgiveness are never boring.
Take this promise of Jesus to heart.
“Those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of God who sent me, not to do my own will. And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up at the last day. For it is my Father’s will that all who see his Son and believe in him should have eternal life. I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:37-40, NLT, emphasis added)
Let me encourage you to come back to this promise over and over and plead with the Holy Spirit to drill these truths into your heart until you can say, “Yes! That’s true of me! I have come to Jesus in repentant faith, so God has promised eternal life to me.”
This same security is found here in Romans 8:
"And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.” (Romans 8:30, ESV)
Have thoughts on this post? I’d love to hear from you!
Lamp and Light 